RAPID CITY - Their 2008 tournament season was outstanding by any measure, but the best may be yet to come for the players of the U-13 Rushmore Gold girls soccer team of Rapid City.

The Gold was formed after tryouts last August and played a combined Rushmore Soccer Club indoor-outdoor campaign starting in January.

Earlier this month, the team capped a 26-3-8 season with the A Flight championship at the 30-team Schwan's USA Cup Tournament in Blaine, Minn., believed to be the first top-flight win in the tournament by a South Dakota team.

In pool play, the Gold blanked Eden Prairie, Minn., Rochester, Minn., and Winnipeg, Ont., by 2-0 scores.

"Nobody scored on us through the quarterfinals," said coach Doug Noyes.

In the playoff round, the Gold stopped Edina, Minn., again by a 2-0 score, then advanced with a 2-1 shootout win over the Northern Blast Escalades of Aberdeen.

The Gold claimed the U-13 title with a 3-2 win over the Neenah Red Wave of Neenah, Wisc.

"That meant a lot," said co-captain Christie Muilenberg, who said the highlight was seeing teammate Amanda Holtz make a sliding kick for what turned out to be the winning goal against Neenah.

"Soccer is really important to me, so it was really great to have such a good season," Muilenberg said.

The Gold also captured the Casper Jamboree and the Billings Magic tournaments, then won the South Dakota Challenge Cup and Rushmore Cup Tournaments in Rapid City to qualify for the Region 2 U.S. National Championship Series Tournament in Rockford, Ill, in June.

The Gold lost all three games at regionals., but Noyes and his players saw the experience as a momentum builder.

"We led two out of the three games," he said. "Keep in mind this was against teams from places like Kansas City. This was 50-60,000 population Rapid City going up against teams that can draw from one or two million people," he said.

"Going to Regionals did great things for us," he said.

"It's a new beginning for next year," said middle-mid player Morgan Weyer. "We'll know what to expect at regionals and we'll know what to do."

"These girls believe they can go again," Noyes said. "They believe they can do anything."

At the Billings Magic Tournament, The Gold beat a tough Billings, Mont., team 2-1, then downed the same team 5-1 in the Rushmore Cup championship.

"That was kind of a measuring stick of how we had come during the season," he said.

Game-shape conditioning and unity played a key role in that progression.

"The girls work out a lot on their own. There isn't a girl on this team that can't play for 70 minutes," he said.

"Other teams are fighting when they're down," said co-captain Lynsey Lytle. "We're lifting each other up and saying 'you can do it,'"

Also key was the development of Rhea Lohman into a strong goalie. Noyes said she decided to fill the role when last year's goalie decided not to return.

"Life is good when your keeper is 13 and she can touch the top bar," he said. A lot of people think when you're that tall, you can't get down on the ground to stop anything. "She's been tall forever and she's good at being tall. She's very coordinated and very graceful," he said.

Noyes said the Gold's USA Cup win demonstrates how far youth soccer has advanced in Rapid City, and how far it could go.

Four teams, U-13, U-14, U-15 Girls and the U-18 Boys, advanced to the USA Cup tournament in Blaine.

"We've never done that before," Noyes said.

The team put in a lot of road time traveling to Denver and Minneapolis. The Gold even played in a February tournament in Pueblo, Colo.

"We had to travel a lot to find age-appropriate competition and it paid off," he said.

Noyes said the fall season will see several of his eighth-grade players invited to try out for high school teams.

He expects to lose just two players for next year's club season, and should be able to fill those positions from a deep corps of reserves.

He expects big things for his team and for soccer in Rapid City in general.

"Rapid City Post 22 has a national championship American Legion baseball team, and it's all from the same gene pool," Noyes said. "There's no reason we can't put together a national championship girls soccer team."

Lytle, however, probably best summed up this season.

"It's been really fun," she said.